


Accidentally on Purpose

by pinkish



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Gender Identity, Happy Ending, M/M, Masturbation, Supernatural Convention, a tiny bit of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:52:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkish/pseuds/pinkish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gil isn’t great at conventions. He’s awkward and shy and doesn’t really know how to talk to fans, but Osric is always there to help him out. Their budding friendship (and maybe something more) gets put to the test when Gil makes an ass out of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Accidentally on Purpose

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Accidentally on Purpose](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/95225) by Alexisjane. 



> Warnings: some homophobic and bigoted slurs (takes place in past/memory) and misgendering
> 
> This is my first time writing an RPF and although I wouldn’t have said I shipped it before seeing alexisjane’s art, as soon as I saw it I knew I’d found just the sweetest most adorable pairing. I ship it hard, now. I couldn’t have done this without my amazing betas (ehryn and eve, ily), who made my story better (and also told me they liked it). I’d also like to note that although this is obviously fictional (awwww), I genuinely think that Osric is that amazing, and the speech he gives near the end of this story is largely cribbed from something he said IRL. In short: Osric is the best, and I hope you like my Osric at least a tiny bit as much as you like IRL Osric.
> 
> Beautiful art by the amazing alexisjane <3

 

Osric watched Gil from his stool on the right of the stage. Poor Gil. His face slowly turned a bright red as he stammered awkward answers into his microphone. He was trying so hard -- so hard -- to keep up. Osric couldn’t help but smile. He really should rescue the poor guy, but Gil looked too adorable as he fumbled around for answers to questions about Henry’s relationship with John (Osric wasn’t sure Gil even knew who John was). As amusing as it was to watch Gil flounder, Osric couldn’t resist helping him out when he sent an imploring look his way.

Osric felt comfortable on stage, which was weird. Weird because he never really felt comfortable anywhere, but here -- in his dresses, in his costumes -- he didn’t have to try to fit in. The feeling of being out of phase with the rest of the world was absent every time he entered the world of Supernatural conventions. He knew that other guys felt a similar kind of comfort – Rob and Dick were so completely at home on stage it was hard to imagine them ever feeling like weirdos. So, shrugging into the “Osric is so wacky what's he gonna do next” mode, he skipped up to where Gil was standing and pretended to whine about feeling left out. The audience “awww”ed at his pout and laughed when he tried to force Gil to give him a piggy-back. Osric knew that there’d be gifs of him trying (in vain) to climb onto Gil’s back making their way to the internet soon and made a mental note to show a few of them to Gil, just to see the grin on his face when he realized that fans actually did like him, no matter how awkward he was. (He'd get to explaining that they liked him because he was awkward eventually. Osric wasn't sure Gil was ready to accept that awkward was OK.)

They spent the rest of the panel horsing around, and the look of panic on Gil’s face relaxed into just-plain-nervousness. It was rare to get anything out of Gil that wasn't tinged with nervousness (except when he was singing...damn that guy could sing) so just-plain-nervous was a victory of sorts. It seemed, at least, like Gil was starting to enjoy himself. He'd grin at Osric after making a supremely dorky pun, and his laughter when Osric told the story about the time he dislocated Jared's shoulder was seriously joyful – like he'd never heard the story before.

And maybe he hadn't. That was the weird thing about having Gil on tour with them. Most of the convention talent were old hands at this kind of thing, even if they were new to Supernatural. But Gil was so...

Osric tried desperately to avoid the word virginal.

It was sweet, at any rate, to see Gil’s face lit up when a fan thanked him. Not that the rest of them weren’t grateful for that kind of thing, but Osric had...forgotten that feeling of slowly realizing that you mattered to fans, that you brought them actual joy and that they wanted to share that joy with you. He couldn't remember making a conscious decision to become Gil’s con-mentor, but once he realized that’s what had happened he didn't see a reason to stop. As fun as it was to watch Gil stammer through fan encounters, the best part was seeing the conventions through Gil’s eyes.

(And if it felt special, different, to see the look of relief, of gratitude, of happiness on Gil’s face when Osric rescued him from another awkward panel, Osric refused to think about what that meant. He was not interested in interrogating the buzzing warmth that rose up in response to Gil’s thank-god-you’re-here face, not interested in figuring out if it was a new-friend feeling or something...else.)

After they finished signing, they both had the afternoon off. The advantage of not being one of the main three was that they didn't have to spend literally every second of their time in panels, signing, or taking pictures. Although they never quite had the energy to explore the cities they were in, they could, at least, go back to their hotel rooms or grab some sustenance somewhere nearby. So when Gil mentioned that he was going to grab a coffee at the cute little cafe down the street later that afternoon, Osric made note of the time and place and tried to convince himself that he was just making plans to surprise a friend with some company. Sure, if it was anyone else, he'd probably leave them to their coffee as he planned out the serious relaxing he was going to do in his hotel room, but...well, what kind of con-mentor would he be if he abandoned the guy, right?

At least he had time for a quick shower and a change of clothes. He was always so keyed up after panels and signings and – as much as he loved his fans – he always felt like he needed to wash off the smell of con from his body before he could feel like a real human again. He started the hot water before undressing, letting the bathroom fill with steam. He looked at himself in the increasingly foggy mirror and made a face at himself.

_God dammit, Os. Keep it together. It's not a date. You're not falling for the fucking straightest guy you know._

When he could no longer make out his face, he peeled off his clothes and stepped into the shower, trying to drown out the flutter in his stomach with the hot, heavy, stream of water. The sharp pricks of droplets on his shoulders, on his chest distracted him enough that he didn't even realize he'd started stroking himself until he let out a small moan of pleasure. He smiled and paid closer attention to his speed and pressure – getting off always helped him clear out the adrenaline from a good panel. He was getting close when his brain supplied him with the image of kind brown eyes, of slender fingers and lean muscles. He saw his name being formed by lips he didn't realize he'd been staring at enough to memorize what they looked like and he imagined what it would be like to taste them, and that pushed him over the edge. His arms and legs shook as he came down from his orgasm, and the emotional high lasted only as long as it took him to realize that he'd just jerked off to the guy who was supposed to be his friend.

_Fuck._

 

* **

 

Gil was just settling into his seat outside the cafe he'd spotted on his morning run. He'd picked up a normal, pronouncable cup of coffee and the local daily newspaper and was looking forward to checking up on the world outside of Supernatural and conventions and fans when he heard someone call his name. He knew it was Osric before he even looked up – the sound of Osric saying his name (and saving him from making a complete ass of himself in front of a ballroom full of fans) had quickly become associated with feelings of relief, safety, comfort. He could feel his face split into a grin – a real one, genuine and unprompted by a camera – as he waved the guy over. He didn't often get to see Osric outside of panels, because if Osric wasn't busy making fans happy, he was usually holed up in his hotel room gathering energy for the next time he'd blow their minds with whatever awesome thing he had planned.

(Gil remembered the first time he saw Osric come out to sing “Creep” and the thunderous applause from the fans, remembered the cheers when some masked cosplayer revealed himself to be the fan-favourite Osric Chau, remembered how easy it was for Osric to make the fans happy...)

“Hey, man! I wasn't expecting to see you outside the hotel!”

Osric chuckled as he slumped into the chair across from Gil's. “I didn't want you to be here all alone to be mobbed by a group of fans when someone tweets that they saw you here.”

Gil's heart stuttered and his face blanched, feeling stupid for sitting outside. “Shit – I didn't --”

Osric laughed, his face lighting up as it always did when Gil did something nooby (or whatever that word was, noob? Noub? Damn Osric and his nerd words). “Nah, you'll be fine, Gil – people are usually pretty cool with leaving us alone outside the con. One or two fans might come up to us if they see us, but most will just take a picture and leave us be.”

“You're such a troll, Os,” Gil said as his face heated, embarrassed he'd fallen for Osric's joke, but pleased that he'd been able to use one of the words Osric had taught him.

“Sorry,” Osric said with a grin that made it clear he wasn't sorry at all.

They stayed grinning at each other for a second longer than they really should have and Gil pulled his eyes away from Osric's and back to his newspaper. He heard Osric shuffle in his seat and clear his throat. “I'm just gonna grab a coffee – be right back, yeah?”

Gil nodded, trying to ignore the flush that had not left his face. He always felt extra nervous around Osric – he was fine around everyone else (OK, so Misha sometimes freaked him out, but that was just because he could never tell when Misha was joking or being serious), but something about Osric always made him just a little clumsier, just a little dumber. He figured it was because Osric was so damned good at this convention thing. It made Gil realize just how awkward he was, just how different he was from the people who'd come to see them (who'd paid amounts of money that made Gil choke on his drink when he'd first heard how much some fans spend), just how little he fit in. He hated that feeling – it reminded him of times in elementary school and high school when he'd hardly had any friends because skinny theatre kids don't really fit in with jocks and farmers. If he could go back in time and tell his younger self that he'd feel out of place around a bunch of nerds, he could probably make himself cry.

No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't figure out how to seem as comfortable as Osric did. Osric always managed to make it look like he was having fun, like he really loved answering the same questions over and over again. Not that Gil hated being on tour, but he never felt like people liked what he was giving them. He was thinking about the almost-disaster of the panel this morning when Osric sat back down (with a mug overflowing with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles) and his face had pulled into a frown.

“Woah – why so serious, Gil?” Osric said, smirking in a way that let Gil know he was missing a reference.

“I was just thinking of this morning's panel – thanks for saving my ass,” Gil grimaced as he remembered the barely coherent answer he'd given to a fan's question about how he thought Henry would think of John's parenting. He knew what Henry would think – he knew that Henry would be disappointed in his son, but more disappointed in himself for leaving his son alone and abandoning him to the world of monsters, but when he opened his mouth to give his answer, he'd looked out at a sea of faces, eager for his words, and his brain just stopped working. He had no idea what he said, but he was pretty sure some people left that panel thinking he didn't even know John was Henry's son.

“Hey, it wasn't so bad – you'll get used to it. You don't have to worry so much about impressing them.”

Gil sighed. “Yeah, I know, but it just looks so easy when you do it.”

Osric laughed again. “It's only easy because I don't actually try!” Osric saw Gil's grimace deepen so he corrected himself. “I just mean that I'm not pretending to have fun, man. I just act like I would around my friends. The fans want to see who we really are, and they'll love whoever that person is.”

“But I'm so boring around my friends...” He hadn't meant it to come out as a whine, but, well, it had and there was no going back now. He added a pout to make it look like it was a joke.

“You're not boring – I'm hanging out with you of my own free will. No one's even paying me to be here!”

“Are you sure? I wouldn't be surprised if Dick slipped you a twenty to keep me from running away before tonight's show.”

“Oh come on,” Osric scoffed. “Now I know you're joking – if there's one thing you love doing at these things, it's singing.”

Gil huffed a laugh, covering his fluster by taking a sip of coffee.

“When you sing,” Osric leaned forward, tapping Gil's arm to get him to look at him, “what are you thinking? What are you feeling?”

“I don't know,” Gil said, “I guess I just feel ... normal? Good? Like myself?”

Osric grinned, “That's the secret, you know. That's how I do it, that's how Misha does it, that's even how fucking Mark does it. You just do you.”

“So does that mean that you're really a girl?” Gil said, grinning at the man in front of him as he thought about how it's hardly even a surprise anymore when Osric shows up in a dress, with a wig, makeup, and heels, looking like a surprisingly pretty girl.

Gil was still laughing at the memory of Osric tugging down the skirt of his Castiel dress and pulling at it to keep his ass covered when he looked up to see Osric's face fall.

“Just because I wear a dress doesn't make me a girl.”

 _Ah, shit._ Gil knew he messed up, knew he said something he shouldn't have, but now had no idea how to get out of it.

“I know – but, come on, you wear dresses more than you wear pants on stage.” Gil couldn’t stop the words from falling out of his mouth, echoes of words he'd heard from teachers and his parents when he got beat up for being a faggy drama kid.

Osric's face fell even further. Gil hadn't realized Osric could look so...sad? Upset? He'd never seen the guy without at least a smile dancing around his eyes.

“I feel comfortable in dresses, Gil. I feel just as much like me in a dress and makeup as I do in sweats.”

“Sorry, man, I didn't mean to offend you – but if you feel just as much like yourself in guy clothes, why do you even wear girl clothes? Why put yourself out there?”

Osric's scowl softened into disappointment, into pity. “Because I think that everyone should be allowed to be their whole selves, no matter what other homophobes or bigots think. And stop it with the “girl clothes” and “boy clothes” thing – what are you, twelve?”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Gil raised his hands, palms facing Osric, “I'm not a homophobe. I think gay people should be allowed to get married! I voted against Prop 8! And I didn't know you were gay!”

Osric rubbed his temples with his fingers and spoke slowly and clearly, as though biting off words he knew he shouldn't say. “First, I'm not gay – not that it's any of your business, but it's not like I'm in the closet anyway. When you have time,” Osric almost spat out the word, “Google 'genderqueer' and 'pansexual'. And second, you don't get to decide if you're a bigot or not, man. Just saying it doesn't make it true.”

“Now you're just making words up!” Gil tried to manoeuvre the conversation out of the argument and back into friendly banter, but knew even before the words left his mouth that he'd made a mistake. He didn't even have to look at Osric's face to know that he'd only made it worse.

“I think I'm gonna go back to my room. Take a nap before the cabaret tonight.”

Gil heard rather than saw Osric push his chair back and pause before stepping away from the table and out onto the sidewalk. He kept his eyes on the newspaper until he was sure that Osric was long gone. He put his face in his hands and swore at himself for being such a fucking asshole.

***

Osric slammed the door to his hotel room, harder and louder than he'd intended. He was fuming. It's not like this was the first time anyone had said something stupid, or made fun of him for wearing dresses. It wasn't even the first time someone had said that he was making up the words that best described how he felt. It wasn't even the first time someone on the show, for fuck's sake, said something bigoted. He knew that Gil wasn't trying to be hurtful. He even knew that Gil probably already felt like shit and all he really needed was someone to explain to him why he was wrong. But it just made him so fucking mad.

Osric took a few calming breaths, trying to get his anger under control. Except it wasn't really anger, was it? It was disappointment. It was hurt.

He'd let himself trust Gil, despite his home-town Texan dreams of a wife and 2.5 kids and a white goddammned picket fence. He'd let himself feel comfortable and let himself develop what he was increasingly forced to admit to himself was a crush, knowing the guy was straighter than _Jared,_ for crying out loud. Osric fell onto the bed, face first, in (what he knew very well was) a dramatic flop and let himself wallow in disappointment for a few minutes. He’d feel better after a good cry. So he let his mind follow the well-worn paths of past hurts and regrets. He remembered the time a girl in grade four had laughed at him when he asked if he could borrow her nail polish because the sparkles were pretty. He felt the memory of heat spreading across his face when a crush had sneered and said “gross” when Osric asked if he’d ever thought about kissing another boy. Osric’s face was wet with tears, and his body hurt from holding in tension, but remembering that he could survive shit like this would make him feel better in the end. People let you down, sometimes -- he knew that well enough. Knew that sometimes people you trusted turned to you and said “yeah, but you’re not like those people” or grew silent -- awkward and judgmental -- when you said something too gay or too weird or too honest. Some of those people would come back and apologize, would learn that it was them who needed to change, and others would disappear (eventually, or painfully, or just enough).

But he really, really didn’t want to lose Gil. He’d found something in his friendship with the man that he wasn’t ready to give up. Osric knew he'd survive – it might be a bit awkward for a few days, and he definitely wasn't going to be able to goof around with Gil tonight – but he'd make it through. He'd be able to let his crush fall away until all that was left was a recognition that the guy was hot and – hopefully, someday – a cautious friendship. It was sad, letting go. He’d only just let himself admit that he liked the guy and now he had to train himself out of noticing it every time he saw Gil.

Osric hated letting go of people he liked, but he'd already learned that lesson the hard way.

 

***

 

Gil watched as Osric took the stage, standing in front of the microphone and looking out at the audience, who were rapt and ready to receive whatever he decided to give them that night. Gil felt another pang of guilt as he remembered how hurt Osric had sounded as he left the cafe that afternoon. The pang turned into genuine pain (a sharpness in his chest and a tightness in his throat) when Osric announced that he'd be singing Radiohead's “Creep.”

“So,” Osric said once the cheers died down, “I just wanted to say, before I start: thank you.”

The crowd let out a chorus of “Thank _you!”_ and Osric dipped his head and grinned.

“I’ve always been the weirdo -- the guy who never really fit in, but you guys...you guys make me feel like it’s OK to be me and I hope that you all know how much it means to me to know you’re there.”  
  
After the third round of applause died down (god damn did those fans love Osric...), he looked up at the crowd again. “I want you all to know that you aren’t alone. I love you!” He shouted the last like a rock star (or, at least, a rock star who said things like “I love you” to his fans) and the band started playing, but Gil wasn’t listening.

All he could think about was Osric talking about feeling out of place, feeling alone and weird and different. About how he felt like he belonged with everyone here and how he hoped that no one had to feel wrong in this room. And Gil felt like Osric was speaking to him, about him. Gil had made Osric feel wrong. God, he was such a shitty person.

He tried to catch Osric's eye as he left the stage, but Osric was definitely avoiding him. He'd have to find a time to apologize soon – to show that he regretted what he'd said, that he understood why it was wrong. He'd spent the afternoon on the internet, learning about words like genderqueer, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, transgender, queer (it wasn't a bad word? Wasn't it a bad word?) and that there was more to human sexuality and gender than gay or straight, man or woman. It was an eye-opening afternoon.

He found himself on a page full of words that he had never encountered before (or words he’d had whispered behind his back or heard grumbled behind his parents’ closed door) and shut his laptop reflexively. How could he look at words like “polyflexible” and “biromantic” and “cisgender” and not feel a sense of disconnection? Not feel the word weird bubble up in his mind? He had put his head in his hands and took a deep breath. He needed to do this, to understand Osric -- even just a little bit. He opened up his laptop again and typed in pansexuality.

_Regardless of gender._

He rolled the words around his head for a few minutes and let them sink in. He couldn’t put himself in that mindset -- couldn’t imagine what that felt like. Did it mean that the body didn’t matter at all? What about when they had sex? He clicked a few more links and found his way to a website where people were arguing about pansexuality and bisexuality. Some people thought they were the same. Some people thought they were totally different and offensive and it was way too fucking stressful for Gil to handle.

But he couldn’t stop himself from looking up “bisexual”, or from feeling a warm flush of recognition flow through his body when he read people’s stories about when they’d realized they were “bi” (the word felt strange in his head -- not wrong, just unfamiliar). He'd always known he wasn't gay; he definitely found women attractive, wanted to touch and kiss them, so he’d shrugged off the times when he’d found men attractive or caught himself staring at a guy’s ass just as long as he’d stare at a woman’s. He knew that everyone was a little bit bi anyway (at least that’s what people said), so he just felt good about being comfortable enough in his heterosexuality to acknowledge that a man was good looking.

But reading the confessions, he had to admit that he had felt like they had. He did do more than just recognize that a guy was hot -- he felt that a guy was hot. He did think about what it would feel like to fall asleep next to another man, to wake up in a man’s arms, to kiss another man’s lips. (It also was hard to ignore that post where someone said that straight dudes don’t often get off on the thought of two guys doing it, which, he had to admit, was a pretty good point). So it was a sinking kind of relief to admit to himself that it wasn’t all just hypothetical “if I had to kiss a guy” kind of thinking -- it was fantasy. It was daydreams. It’s just that...Gil had spent too many years being beat up and bullied for being an artsy kid that he'd taken comfort in his attraction to women. He-- well, he wasn't quite ready to say he was bisexual. Certainly not out loud, and maybe not even secretly to himself. But the word had settled in his mind and he didn't run away from it.

It was a start. He’d bookmarked the website and had felt good about the idea of visiting it again. Felt good about trying to learn about himself, to learn about ideas that made him think.

But he knew that he'd need to do more than tell Osric that he'd looked up the word “genderqueer” and hadn't run away screaming. And there’s no way he could say “I’m sorry I have internalized homophobia and biphobia and that I’m having a sexual identity crisis right now.” Osric would probably find it hilarious, but that’s not really what he wanted to apologize for. Of course, yeah, he wanted to apologize for being an ass and saying those things, but what he really wanted to apologize for was being like every person who'd made Osric think he was wrong. He'd have to show him, prove to him, that he understood – that he knew how it felt to feel like your body didn't fit in the world, that he knew what it meant to be a person who was different, and that he knew how much he'd hurt him.

He had a bag in his hotel room.

A bag he'd carried from H&M back to the hotel, trembling with fear that someone would ask to see what it was and he'd have to explain why he had a dress in his size (he even blanked on the memory of buying it -- had he mumbled something about a costume? a girlfriend? He’d just been so worried that a fan would see him and ask him what he was doing that he wasn’t sure he even looked at the cashier...). He couldn't explain why he'd bought it – he knew why he bought it, but he couldn't say it. He hadn't thought beyond putting it on and showing it to Osric, but he didn't know what to say to make Osric realize he was taking it seriously. What if he wore it and showed Osric only to have Osric think he was making fun of it? Of him? Or that Gil was making it all about him instead of about apologizing to Osric?

But the more he tried to find a different way to show Osric that he'd learned, that he'd opened his mind to new words, new ideas, and that his friendship was more important than some notion of “girl-clothes,” the more it became clear to Gil that he couldn't do anything else. He'd just have to hope his brain cooperated when he got to Osric's room.

 

***

 

Osric splashed his face with water when he got back to his hotel room. He'd cried again on stage, after singing “Creep” – it was such a cathartic rush to bare himself to the room full of fans. He could almost feel the flow of love when they connected to his words. It always made him feel better when he shared moments like that. He was still hurting from his argument with Gil, unable to look at the guy when he was so clearly trying to get Osric's attention, but the hurt had faded, was no longer as insistent as it had been earlier that day. He was just about to take off his pants and settle into his bed to watch some shitty TLC reality show when he heard a knock on his door.

He frowned when he tried to figure out who it could be; he hadn't ordered anything from room service, and all of his friends knew that he wanted to have a quiet night to himself. He worried, briefly, that someone had figured out where his room was, and was walking silently to the door to peek through the peephole when he heard Gil's voice on the other side of the door.

“Osric, it's me,” Gil paused and Osric could hear the nervous shake of his voice, “I was hoping I could apologize to you.”

Osric sighed. He'd been on the way to a good mood, and now he was worried and anxious and all twisty inside. Sometimes apologies just made things worse: “I'm sorry you were offended.” “It's just my opinion, it doesn't mean it's true.” “I think it's weird, but I still think you're cool.”

Or, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t be friends with you.”

But he couldn't just ignore Gil, and he might as well get it over with quickly. At least he'd know sooner than later if he'd lost a friend.

So he took a deep breath and opened the door only to see Gil standing there in a --

“Is that a dress?” Osric said a little louder than he meant to, peeking his head out the door to see if there was anyone in the hallway.

Gil tugged the dress down, clearly uncomfortable with the amount of thigh that was showing, face going red with embarrassment but – Osric was surprised (pleased) to note – not shame.

Osric ushered Gil into his room, still shocked that Gil (apparently – there was no coat, no sweater to hide his body) had walked from his room to Osric's wearing a flirty, short-sleeved dress with a floral pattern and a v-neck. As he watched Gil try to stand up straight without the dress riding up to show even more skin, Osric started to laugh.

He tried to stop it, at first, muffling the sound by pretending to cough, but the sight of Gil trying to figure out where to put his hands, how to hold his arms, was too much and Osric began to shake with suppressed laughter. He was on his way to hyperventilating when he realized that Gil was apparently trying to say something; Osric could hear words like “sorry” and “I'm learning” and “was a dick” and “don't deserve”, but they were all coming out in the stammer and stutter that Osric had come to know meant Gil was trying really hard.

When Gil’s mouth formed the words “shitty ally” in a voice that sounded exactly like Gil’s, Osric couldn’t help himself and he let out a guffaw. He knew it was the absolute worst thing to do, but to see Gil try to impress Osric, to try to be the kind of person he thought Osric wanted him to be – the same way he tried so hard to be good for the fans...It was just so heartbreaking that it was that or cry. When Osric managed to calm himself down long enough to take a breath, he looked at Gil. Gil’s  face and chest were flushed red and he wasn’t letting Osric look him in the eye, but he stayed standing straight and unashamed.

Osric smiled. “Thanks, man,” he said as he sat back down on his bed. He wiped his hand over his face, trying to push the laughter away for the moment. “Thank you for apologizing.”

Gil nodded and made his way over to a chair to sit, but stood up again as he realized he couldn’t sit without giving Osric a glimpse of his underwear.

“You didn't have to do all ... this.” Osric motioned towards Gil's body, the pale skin of his bare arms and legs highlighted by the bright flowers on his dress. “But – thanks. I appreciate it.”

“I didn't know how else to apologize.” Gil shifted on his feet, clearly uncomfortable in the dress. “So I did, uh, this.”

Gil’s hands fluttered near the hem of the flared skirt of the dress and (judging by the pained look on Gil’s face) accidentally made the skirt twist a little, as though he was twirling to show it off. Osric giggled at the sight before he could stop himself and was about to apologize for laughing when he heard Gil's laughter join his.

“I look ridiculous, don't I?” Gil said, laughing still, as he flopped onto the chair, heedless of the way it exposed his legs even more. “I guess not everyone can pull off a dress like you, Os.”

“Nope – it takes a special gift to wear a dress as well as I do,” Osric said, half-boasting, “but you don't look completely ridiculous.”

This earned him an eyebrow raise from Gil and a sarcastic. “Oh thanks: not completely.”

Emboldened and a little high from the relief of hearing Gil's apology, the relief of having his friend back, Osric let his voice sound a little flirty when he said, “You look kinda cute – the colour suits you.”

Gil laughed again, covering his face in with his arm as though he was embarrassed by the compliment. The motion pulled his skirt up even more and he let out an undignified squawk as he tried to cover himself up.

“God, I didn't realize wearing dresses was so much work,” Gil said.

This set Osric off laughing again, but he was able to control himself enough to walk over to his suitcase and pull out a pair of oversized sweatpants.

“These might be a little short, but you can wear them if you want to stop worrying about flashing me.”

“What if I want to keep flashing you?” Gil said, in a flirtatious tone that startled Osric -- it was his turn, apparently, to stammer and and flush -- but Gil saved him from having to reply by taking the pants and pulling them on. They were a little short, but they fit well enough to cover the bits of skin that Osric was not used to seeing.

“I can't believe you walked here in that. What if someone had seen you?”

Gil laughed, this time a little ruefully. “I meant what I said before, Os – I was wrong, and I'm learning. It's not like any of the fans would think it's horrible for me to wear a dress, and I don't really care what anyone else thinks. I was stupid today. I guess I hoped that – even if you can't completely forgive me – you'd be able to see that you can trust me. Or that you could learn to trust me again.”

Gil's voice trailed off a little sadly, and Osric pulled him down to sit on the bed next to him. “Hey,” he said, waiting for Gil to look at him, “I do forgive you. It hurt, what you said, because, well, because we've gotten to be pretty good friends and I guess I didn't realize how much it mattered to me that you understood. This doesn't take that pain away, but,” Osric smiled at the expression of regret muddled with hope on Gil's face, “yeah, this was good. We're good.”

For the second time that day, Osric found himself looking at Gil, feeling the pull of something more, wondering if he was making it all up or if there was something there. And, again, for the second time that day, Gil pulled away first.

“So, uh,” Gil stammered, “I guess I'll just head back to my room.”

He didn’t move to stand up, though, so Osric put his hand on Gil's shoulder. He felt the soft material of the dress and cringed at the intimacy of what he'd hoped would be a “bro” kind of move. “I was just about to watch some Toddlers in Tiaras and eat too many Skittles, if you want to join me.”

Gil grinned. “Oh my god, that show is so – so bad but so great. I'm in.”

They shuffled themselves to the headboard and Osric turned on the TV. He found himself even more grateful that the episode they were watching didn’t require a lot of attention because he kept getting distracted by the feeling of Gil shifting beside him, kept sensing Gil’s hand only millimetres away from his own. When someone on the show said something particularly horrific (“Beauty is everything”) Gil leaned over and nudged Osric's shoulder with his. The contact sent a thrill through Osric's skin.

They stayed like that, sitting close enough to feel the other's body heat, hands and arms brushing with accidental contact as they settled further into the bed, until Osric realized that Gil was no longer sitting. Instead, he was lying on the bed, curled towards Osric and snoring quietly. Osric considered waking him up and sending him back to his hotel room, but he didn't want to interrupt whatever dream put that little smile on Gil's face. So he turned the TV off, grabbed a blanket from the closet to drape over Gil and crawled underneath the covers. He didn’t even try to stop the grin that spread across his face and the heat of something more than friendship that flowed through his body. As he lay his head on the pillow, he heard a mumbled “'Night, Os,” as Gil shuffled underneath both sets of blankets and ended up curled even closer to Osric.

“'Night, Gil.”

 

***

 

Gil felt Osric shift from the bed and tried to ignore the feeling of butterflies (swarms and swarms of massive, huge, giant butterflies) in his stomach as he thought about ‘accidentally’ spending the night in Osric’s bed. He worried, briefly, that Osric was coming to his side of the bed (his side oh god) to shake him awake and send him back to his own room, but he felt the weight of a soft blanket across his shoulders and over his legs and ducked his face into the pillow to hide his smile. As Osric settled back into bed, Gil found the edge of the blanket he’d been lying on and shuffled around until he was under the same blanket as Osric. He wasn’t ready to ... kiss Osric. He didn’t even know if that’s something Osric would want. But he enjoyed this -- tension. The feeling of wanting to move his hand over just a little bit to see if it would brush Osric’s arm. Feeling like if he just shifted over an inch, his hip would be touching Osric’s. That if he turned around, he could tuck himself into the curve of Osric’s body and feel his arms wrap themselves around Gil’s chest.

It was...weird. It was strange to feel these things and not shove the thoughts away immediately.

But...

Well.

Gil felt Osric shift closer and their hands met in the middle of the bed and neither one of them moved away.

That was okay. It was enough and it was pretty fucking okay.

 

 


End file.
